Walt Whitman said "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Among my multitudes are Buddhism, pacifism, polyamory, self-examination, libraries, and science. Perhaps my various adventures will be interesting to others.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I solicited name suggestions for the kitties, and had some good suggestions.

Such as: Holly and Molly? Jilly and Milly? Fafhrd and Mouser? Mina or Minnie or Maisie...

That was when I believed those who told me so that they were girls. By the time I discovered they are actually boys, I had decided on Sandy and Zigzag...after the rivers on Mt. Hood. I figured if I found out they were boys...and subconsciously I guess I knew because I kept wanting to say 'he' instead of 'she'...these would still work. And they do. And they are Sandy on the left, and Zigzag on the right:

via Choten, Shintai, and others: The last statement of Nyogen Senzaki. We Dharma Rainers like this one especially because he's an honorary founder of our temple. My teacher has called him the patron saint of Dharma orphans. Nyogen Senzaki was sent to America and left to his own devices. My teachers were also orphaned, but not before they received Dharma Transmission.

The San Francisco Zen Center is now publishing a blog of Shunryu Suzuki's Dharma Talks from the time he came to America. I became a fan, of course. You can do that on Facebook."We are descended from neutrinos." Boris Kayser, Fermilab (Nova, "The Ghost Particle" 2006) ...I transcribed as I watched it on July 7.I said: I'm adjusting to life with kittens. Leg attacks from front...blanket covers legs. This leads to leg attacks from beneath. I may need thigh-high boots.and Judy responded: Trim claws.Say "ouch" in high kitten-voice when they do it (as kittens teach each other what is too much) and move them away.Repeat.Repeat.Repeat.... Read MoreWhat they really want is your attention. Eventually, they get that you won't play with them if they hurt you.It worked.

I was way too busy to see Star Trek in the Park...pretty much all my Sundays were booked, as of course were my Saturdays. I wanted to go though.

Something like the day after he shared this, or around that time, Choten went and had tea with Eric and Eugene, a couple who've been together longer than I've been alive. The last article I did for the NW Dharma News was on a panel which included Eric: Buddhist, Theist, and Non-Believer. I stopped writing for them because I was taking on too much. That was around the time I joined Dharma Rain's Dharma Council and I started writing a column for Dharma Rain's newsletter on Dharma School.

New apps for the phones from Trimet! I've started using dadnab. Find yourself out and about, not sure which bus you should take, or even where the closest one is? Now you can send a text message, and get your trip sent back to you via text. And hey...this isn't just for Portland...they've got cities from the West Coast to the East Coast.

I really should do this. I'm not sayin' what I do wrong. I'm just sayin'...and you should too.

This is a nice concise article on Portland's water supply. In addition, a link to a small piece of my past: Joe Miller. I stayed at his house once with other Friends and attendees of the Meeting of Friends. We took samples of a stream as part of the eff...ort to prove Logging Is Bad. Joe made sourdough buttermilk pancakes for us in the morning.

I've been working on my first student Dharma Talk...which I'm giving this Sunday, by the way. Here's a hint on the subject:

Your result for The Buddhist Personality Type Test...

Confused

You scored 24 % greed, 13 % anger, 26 % fear, and 41 % confusion!

You are the Confused type! Everyone likes Confused types because they're so mellow, but this mellowness isn't the same as true equanimity, since you usually don't actually know what's going on. The meditation practice that is recommended for your type is Noting, http://www.buddhanet.net/imol/retreat/instructions.htm to help you directly connect with the experience of the moment, rather than spacing out and going into daydreams or stories about what you think is happening.

As with all the personality types, remember that there's nothing here to take personally. Tendencies to Greed, Aversion, and Delusion are just that: tendencies. They're learned responses that can (with wisdom and persistence) be unlearned.

Eileen lamented the lack of a map of free fruit for harvesting in the city. I was pretty sure there was some kind of shared fruit harvest thing in Portland. So I noodled around and found this neat article by Jim Hightower, and I found the Portland Fruit Tree Project. Nifty. But this is how Facebook sucks up the time.